Communications infrastructure for wireless local area networks (WLAN), such as those operating under the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) 802.11 series of standards (collectively referred to as “Wi-Fi”), continues to evolve to meet changing user needs. In general, an association process for a user to find and connect to a correct Wi-Fi network may require excessive time and complications for most users. Further, Wi-Fi networks do not provide a convenient mechanism to assume work requests from overloaded wireless wide area networks (WWAN), such as overloaded 3G and 4G cellular radiotelephone networks. Recent efforts to address some of these issues have led to development of a series of standards to simplify connection and roaming in Wi-Fi based networks. These standards are sometimes collectively referred to informally as “Hotspot” standards. In particular, a Hotspot 2.0 standard represents evolution of Wi-Fi infrastructure supported by the Wi-Fi Alliance® and is designed to interoperate with the IEEE 802.11 standards for WLAN communications. Some goals of the Hotspot 2.0 standards include enabling simple, secure connection to Wi-Fi hotspots, facilitating easy roaming among them, and managing traffic offload from 3G/4G networks to Hotspot 2.0-enabled Wi-Fi networks. As part of this effort, network operators are presently deploying a large number of Wi-Fi hotspots to address the growing data demand, provide better quality of experience, and reduce churn.
However, one of the fundamental remaining challenges facing users of Wi-Fi capable devices in public hotspots is the ability to discover which Wi-Fi hotspot is available for users/devices to access based upon the credentials possessed by a given user. In the absence of any standards, this process involves a multiple step trial and error method. Among the various actions that may be performed before a user successfully accesses a given public hot-spot, the user of a wireless device may be required to find and launch a “Connection Manager” program or application resident on the wireless device. Subsequently, the wireless device may scan for publicly available wireless networks, which may be displayed on the wireless device to the user as a service set identifier (SSID). A SSID typically represents a public name for a given network. The user may then manually select a SSID to connect to a corresponding wireless network hotspot. The wireless device may then perform an association process with the selected hotspot (wireless access point of the wireless network). Subsequently, in typical scenarios, the user may manually launch a web browser application, which triggers the hotspot to launch a web page on the user's wireless device that redirects the session and displays provider information and/or roaming partner information. At this point, a determination is typically made as to whether the wireless device user has the proper credentials to access the provider of the hotspot or whether network roaming is supported. If so, access to the public hotspot may be permitted following one or more additional actions, such as the user providing specific information indicating credentials, such as providing codes, selecting menu items provided in the web browser, and so forth.
As is apparent, the above process is both extensive and may entail needless complication and time. Although this process to obtain Wi-Fi hotspot access may be familiar to many users, the extensive procedures required and the potential for making errors during such procedures may cause excessive user frustration and generally deter users from accessing Wi-Fi networks. It is with respect to these and other considerations that the present improvements have been needed.